


Tingles

by Anonymous



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Author has no medical knowledge, First Kiss, Getting Together, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sharing a Bed, Tony Stark Lives, soft and sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23973949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Peter had experienced the feeling before – fire in his veins, itching and burning, lighting every nerve – but he always thought it was a sign of some world-ending danger. The kind that can barely be quantified or comprehended. His sixth sense became so all-consuming and insistent that it was hardly useful.Turns out, the thing that sets off Peter’s ultimate warning bell is nothing more or less than seeing Tony Stark in mortal danger.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 225
Collections: Anonymous





	Tingles

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Peter’s senses are screaming at him, an insistent tingle under his skin stoked so high that it feels like flames licking along the blue trails of his veins. Danger, it tells him. Danger everywhere. Behind every tree, under every rock and beneath every pile of moldering leaves in this godforsaken forest.

Beside him, clutched to his side, Mr. Stark is eerily silent. He’s never quiet. Never not quipping, or sassing, or going on long, incomprehensible-to-anyone-but-Peter-and-maybe-Dr. Banner science rants. There’s no danger in the forest, Peter knows. Not anymore. All the danger is right beside him. Mr. Stark can’t –

Well, he can’t. Peter won’t allow it. He just wishes the fucking tingles would leave him alone. He gets it. _Danger, Peter Parker. Danger_.

The Iron Man suit is heavy even for Peter now that the systems are running on emergency power. None of the mechanical functions that normally allow Mr. Stark to move around in it with ease are working, and the nanite reactor that usually glows bright and steady at its center is faint.

He could retract it, send the nanites flowing back into their casing, but he’s too frightened of what might be hidden beneath it to do so. He’s unprepared to take in the full picture of Mr. Stark’s injuries just yet. Instead, he focuses on getting them to safety – somewhere to hunker down and take stock.

Peter uses the sticky, spider bite-induced setules on the ends of his fingers to grip the suit, pulls Mr. Stark in tighter. He’s so still and pale, and Peter is shaking and breathing heavy and erratic. But he can’t have a panic attack now. This isn’t like before. He isn’t about to watch the reactor fade out and the light in Mr. Stark’s eyes fade away. He isn’t helpless to do anything but watch and sob like a lost child. He’s doing something. They’re moving forward.

And they aren’t in upstate New York at all. They’re in bumfuck, Canada. Bumfuck, Canada, where some alien death cult has decided to summon their dread overlords with a series of frankly stomach-turning ritual murders. Peter’s seen a lot of death. He frequently teams up with Deadpool, so yeah, he knows a thing or two about grisly ends. Still, he’s lost his lunch twice today already. Might be one of the reasons for the shaking.

“Some people took the entirely wrong lessons from Midsommar,” he pants at Mr. Stark.

He doesn’t expect an answer, and he doesn’t receive one. Mr. Stark’s head lolls to the side, limply, and Peter picks up the pace until he finally breaks through the underbrush and finds the little clearing and the cabin where they’ve been staying for the past three days.

This wasn’t even supposed to be an Avengers mission. It was just a trip for Peter and Mr. Stark to let their science nerd flags fly high. There were some interesting energy readings being generated in a rural area north of Vancouver, and Mr. Stark had asked Peter to come with him to check them out, maybe find a source. The levels didn’t indicate anything dangerous, just something unexpected.

They’d hauled a shit-ton of equipment – including some truly innovative stuff that Mr. Stark had been developing to track trace amounts of magical radiation – up to a one-room cabin in the woods and started setting sensors and taking more detailed readings.

It’s become a bit of an obsession for them both. Whatever else Thanos did to them – and the list is long – one thing he gave them both was a determination to understand the intersection between science and magic, to quantify it and discern its rules so that they can fight it.

Everything had seemed reasonably normal the first few days at the cabin. They’d found a couple areas with runes burned into the ground that put out a faint magical signature and happily spent hours digitally graphing the shifts in energy and analyzing soil samples.

Peter had been having a blast, working in close quarters with Mr. Stark in a way they rarely got to anymore, what with Peter’s doctoral thesis work, and both of their hero-related duties.

He liked the way Mr. Stark physically moved him around the small work area when he needed to get to something, hands warm on Peter’s hips or his shoulders.

“Use your words,” he had told the man, at one point, biting at his bottom lip to keep from giving too much away with his expression.

Mr. Stark had given him a crooked grin and held Peter’s gaze for a beat too long before answering “No.”

And that was that. It left a frisson of something sizzling in the air between them. But Peter schooled himself, remembering that it couldn’t be genuine _flirting._ It’s just Mr. Stark’s way. Instinctual. Tony Stark breathes, and Tony Stark drinks too much coffee, and Tony Stark flirts with the world at large. It’s his state of being rather than an intentional choice.

Despite the knot of hope an anxiety that the unfamiliar proximity between them induces, it had all been fine until this morning. Peter had been on his first cup of coffee since sunrise when a magical pulse so powerful that it blew out most of their sensors had rocked the area. They suited up, and proceeded to find the corpses, and then the people in funny robes doing the chanting, and the swirling portal ready for the alien overlords to come through.

Honestly, Peter has had it with portals and aliens in absolutely any combination. Which isn’t a thought he would have anticipated when he started out in the super hero game. _Aliens. Space._ None of it is nearly as cool as the comic books would lead you to believe.

The thing that had begun to pull itself from the portal was many-limbed and somehow simultaneously gelatinous and hulking. The sight of it sent a cold rivulets of fear trickling down Peter’s back.

“Kid, work on getting that portal closed. I got green and gooey,” Mr. Stark had said, and Peter had hopped from his perch on the back of the Iron Man suit and swung down through the trees.

Normally, Peter would bristle at orders. It’s one of the reasons he and Cap butt heads so often. Everything that comes out of the man’s mouth sounds like a military command, and Peter is a contrarian by nature.

It’s different with Mr. Stark. The years of working together have assured Peter that the other man takes his ideas seriously, that he’ll take orders just as easily as he issues them. There’s a trust there that Peter feels with very few of the other Avengers.

So Mr. Stark had shot like a bullet toward the oozing, eldritch thing with four out of at least twelve feet firmly on terra firma, and Peter had scanned the rest of their surroundings before he’d settled on the probable source of the portal.

The staff was made of rough-hewn wood topped by elaborate gold filigree and was placed in the center of a circle of robed cultists. It was all just a little too on-the-nose. Call Peter a snob, but if it had all been happening in a movie, he and Ned would have snorted at the predictability and started a popcorn war by now.

The thudding impact of Iron Man hitting the alien Jello thing with thrusters on full power, however, had stopped him musing. He webbed up the cultists that didn’t scurry off as soon as he landed in their circle. Then he approached the staff.

Peter looked the thing up and down, considering his best approach as Mr. Stark blasted at the legs of the alien, muttering into the comms “Just stop, you centipede motherfucker …”

He could only really think of one thing that might do the trick, so Peter had grabbed the staff – feeling a buzz of power jolt through his arm like an electric current – and snapped it in one swift move over his knee.

The crack reverberated through the woods, bouncing off the thick trunks of ancient trees. It was followed by a moment of complete and utter silence.

Peter felt only the briefest warning tingle begin in his fingertips before the explosion. It burst out from the broken staff at all angles leaving trees broken and cultists unconscious and bleeding. He was in the calm center of the storm, watching in horror as the portal snapped shut, slicing the alien creature messily in half, and the Iron Man suit fell – dead weighted – from the sky.

He had experienced the feeling before – fire in his veins, itching and burning, lighting every nerve – but he always thought it was a sign of some world-ending danger. The kind that can barely be quantified or comprehended. His sixth sense became so all-consuming and insistent that it was hardly useful.

He felt it on Titan, when Mr. Stark stood face-to-face with Thanos and refused to back down. He felt it on Earth when the man called the Infinity Stones to him and barely survived to tell the tale. He feels it now, when he sees the Iron Man suit lying on the ground, covered in alien goo and crumpled like an aluminum can.

Turns out, the thing that sets off Peter’s ultimate warning bell is nothing more or less than seeing Tony Stark in mortal danger. _Shit._

“Karen, ETA on back-up?” he grunts as he hauls Mr. Stark toward the cabin.

“Dr. Banner and Shuri are en-route now and should arrive in approximately five hours,” Karen answered.

“Fuck,” Peter says, and hoists Mr. Stark up the porch steps, one at at time. He has to go backward and pull the suit behind him with one arm wrapped around its middle.

Inside the cabin, he lays Mr. Stark out in the clear area between the kitchen and the fireplace. Their lab equipment is spread out along one wall, the single twin bed opposite. But the bed would collapse under the weight of the suit right now. It’s amazing that the creaky wooden floors can support it.

It’s the first time that Peter thought to wish for a more substantial bed – one of the giant California king’s that Mr. Stark has furnished to everyone at the Avengers compound.

Before, it hadn’t been a problem. Neither Peter or Mr. Stark seem to sleep much anymore. For both, the preferred method seems to be to work until complete exhaustion overtakes them, collapse for a few hours in blissful, brainless sleep, and then repeat. They ended up mostly taking the bed in shifts. Peter rising just as the other man was ready to curl up for a cat nap. Mr. Stark always puts the coffee pot on to percolate before he passes out, and Peter’s heart constricts a little at the care of that gesture.

Last night, though, their timing had been off. Maybe Peter hadn’t pushed on long enough with his calculations, or Mr. Stark had just been really tired. But he had come to bed, and Tony had still been there – a lump under the covers only recognizable by the sleep-mussed hair sticking out from the blanket. He’d grumbled faint protest when Peter slumped onto the mattress, making the springs groan, but hadn’t made any effort to rise. Instead, he curled himself into a ball and drifted back into a deep sleep.

Exhausted and a little loopy, Peter had wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around the warm curve of Tony’s back and press them skin to skin. He had resisted, but only just.

Tony’s face now is a parody of what it had been last night, weirdly slack and peaceful despite its pallor. Peter drags in a few deep breaths to steady himself, then crouches down and does what he knows he needs to do. He taps the center of the nano reactor casing, and watches as the tiny nanites retreat back to their home.

Then Peter sees white. It feels like blacking out, except the pain doesn’t stop when his vision short-circuits. It feels like every cell in his body is screaming a protest. _Nonononono …_

He’s shaking and collapsed down onto his hands and knees when he finally manages to make sense of the sight in front of him. The scars are terrible, gruesome things, taking over the whole of Tony’s right arm and shoulder and creeping up his neck. But they’re just that. They’re scars – pale, thick tissue built up over the course of months. Peter watched them form, standing vigil in Tony’s room until he fell asleep on his feet in the days after that final battle with Thanos.

They aren’t the terrifying, charred ash gray they had been when he first watched them burn into Tony’s skin, or the sickening wet red they had been while they healed. These are old wounds, and he can’t allow himself to be pulled back to the time when they were fresh. They aren’t back there. They aren’t.

Slowly, Peter straightens his spine.

“Karen,” he says, shakily. “Scan for injuries.”

There’s a soft beeping from the web shooters on Peter’s wrists, which house the nanites for his own spidey suit as well as the hardware for Karen’s consciousness.

“Mr. Stark appears to be suffering from severe internal bleeding due to trauma incurred during the explosion,” Karen says after a few minutes, her calm monotone a balm against Peter’s frayed nerves.

He can see the signs of it now, the dark bruising on Tony’s chest beneath the black tank he wears, the sheen of clammy sweat on his forehead, the tell-tale trickle of blood from his nose. When he takes Tony’s wrist in his hand, the heartbeat he finds there is disturbingly quick. And real help is still more than four hours away.

“Wh-what do I do?” Peter whispers, mostly to himself.

Luckily, though, Karen answers. She directs him, calmly, to the emergency medical kit they brought along with the rest of the scientific equipment. The syringe she has him fetch has a bright orange serum inside – a concoction of Dr. Banner’s invention with vitamin k and other additives to help kick-start blood and platelet production and slow the bleeding.

The first time Peter tries to administer it, his hands are shaking so hard he misses the vein.

“Get it together, Spider-Man,” he mutters, trying to force the tremor away. Tony won’t thank him for injuring him further.

He does eventually manage to successfully administer the shot, leaning back on his heels and breathing heavy when it’s done.

“What’s next, Karen?” he asks.

“The most immediate danger appears to be the body going into shock,” Karen replies. “Mr. Stark’s body temperature appears to be dropping precipitously. It would be advisable to counteract that drop.”

“Warm him up,” Peter says with a nod. “Got it.”

He looks helplessly around the room for a moment before fixing on the bathroom, and its large claw-foot tub. The water never gets truly hot from the faucet here, probably because the plumbing is so old, but its worth a shot.

He starts the tub filling before he dares try to move Tony. With the suit retracted, it’s laughably easy to move him with one arm under his knees and the other bracing his back. He feels like a rag doll in Peter’s arms.

He shucks Tony’s clothes off as quickly as possible, trying to avert his gaze to preserve the man’s dignity. Still, his eyes catch unbidden on muscular thighs and skirt guiltily over the dark thatch of hair at the man’s groin. Lastly, he slides a finger between the nano reactor casing and Tony’s chest and removes it with an audible pop.

It’s worrying that Tony doesn’t even stir as Peter lowers him down into the slightly steaming water. He props the man’s head up on the lip of the tub and starts to wash away the dirt and blood from his face. There’s a nasty cut above his left eye, and blood still dripping from his nose.

The task, at least, keeps his hands busy and his mind distracted from the persistent buzzing beneath his skin. It’s nothing like it was earlier, but it still aches like an electrical burn.

The grime is mostly rinsed away when he notices the trickle of blood coming from the corner of Tony’s eye.

“Karen?!?” he cries out. “What’s happening?”

“The serum is still working its way through Mr. Stark’s system, Peter. But your heart rate is now elevated and your oxygen levels are not ideal…”

Peter sucks in a deep breath.

“Not worried about me, Karen,” he says. “What can I do to stop this? Please?”

“The best course will still be to keep Mr. Stark’s temperature up and allow his body to recover,” she replies.

Peter senses a sternness in her tone that she shouldn’t be capable of. Karen’s always surprising him with her ability to grow and adapt, usually in the fierceness with which she wants to protect him. Her voice in his ear is a comfort when he’s freaking out. Like now. He’s really, really freaking out.

But he makes his hands stay gentle as he wipes the blood away from Tony’s face, watching pink-tinged water trickle over his skin and catch in dark lashes. He only stops when a hand comes up and settles weakly on his forearm.

“Kid?” Tony rasps. “What … Are you okay?”

The noise that emerges from Peter’s throat is half laugh, half sob. It makes Mr. Stark’s eyes fly open and settle on his face. They’re bloodshot and bleary, but they’re still the same warm brown. Having them on him makes him feel steadier, somehow.

“Pete?” he says, squeezing a little tighter at Peter’s arm.

“Fine,” Peter says in a breathless rush. “I’m fine, sir. But you were … You were hurt.”

Mr. Stark lets out a little groan and tries to push himself up to sitting in the tub.

“Yeah, I feel like I did a pavement belly flop,” he says.

His hands slip on the sides of the tub as he leverages himself up, and Peter catches him, supporting his weight with one arm wrapped around his back and bracing a hand against his chest to help him sit up properly.

They manage the maneuver together with perhaps a little too much flailing and splashing. At one point, Mr. Stark seems to be trying to push Peter’s hand away from his chest. When Peter looks down, he sees that his fingers have spread across the slightly caved-in spot, thick with scar tissue, where the arc reactor must have once been embedded. He shifts his grasp minutely so he isn’t touching the spot, and manages to get Mr. Stark steadied and sitting up.

“What happened with big ugly?” he asks weakly when he settles and the water has stopped sloshing around him. “You got the portal closed?”

“Y-yeah,” Peter nods. “Yes. I got the portal closed, and the alien is dead. I broke the magic staff thing they were using. I’m sorry, sir. I should have thought before I did it. It exploded or something and you got caught in the blast. Jesus, if I’d just thought for a minute…”

“Hey, kid, stop.”

Peter doesn’t even realize he’s started crying until Mr. Stark’s hand is on the side of his face, thumb roughly wiping a warm tear from beneath his eye. He feels like an idiot while he sniffles and tries to pull himself together. Mr. Stark just shushes him gently and slides his fingers up into Peter’s hair, rubbing circles against his scalp.

Peter leans into the touch and squeezes his eyes shut.

“You did exactly what you should’ve done,” Mr. Stark whispers between Peter’s hiccupping breaths. “Exactly what I asked. You got the portal closed and you got us both the hell out of dodge.”

He wants to shake his head, a straight denial of a job well done, but Mr. Stark’s hand is still in his hair, stopping the movement.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter repeats instead.

He feels like he can’t say it enough, but a tremor in the hand against his cheek makes him cut off further repetition and look Mr. Stark in assessment. He’s shivering in the tub, struggling not to let his teeth clack together, lips tinged a faint blue. When he trails a hand into the bathwater, it’s lukewarm at best.

“Do you think you can stand?” he asks. “I think we oughta get you out of there.”

Mr. Stark seems to give up on fighting the shivers running through his body, and allows his teeth to clack together as he nods an affirmative.

“Right.”

He helps Mr. Stark struggle to his feet and step out of the tub, then holds onto him even as he grabs a towel and dries him off, rubbing vigorously at still-clammy skin in an effort to warm it. Peter blushes a little when he kneels down to dry his legs, Mr. Stark’s hands braced on Peter’s shoulders to keep him upright. He’s not trying to be voyeur or anything, but the position does something swimmy to his insides that’s just the right side of unpleasant.

Peter finishes the task as quickly as possible, and wraps Mr. Stark in a dry towel and helps him into a chair while he works on getting a fire lit in the cabin’s stone fireplace. He asks Karen to run another scan while he fights to get the wood to catch light. She confirms his suspicions. The internal bleeding has slowed thanks to Bruce’s concoction, but Mr. Stark’s body temperature still isn’t self-regulating. Peter grits his teeth together and all but wills the fire into a roar.

He briefly considers bundling Mr. Stark up and putting him to bed, but a look at the man’s sheet-white face – accented by only a few bright red gashes – tells him that isn’t going to cut it. Instead, he places the metal grate in front of the fire and pulls the large sheep skin rug as close as can possibly be safe.

Mr. Stark does look a little warmer, at least, in the makeshift nest of blankets and pillows that Peter creates in front of the fire. He grumbles about it, sure, but he allows himself to be maneuvered so that he’s snuggled in deep, back inches from the now-crackling fire. Peter crouches down next to him. He trusts Karen’s readings, but the spidey senses that have been buzzing at him irritably are tamped down slightly when he places two fingers against Mr. Stark’s neck, at the pulse point, and feels his heartbeat, sluggish but steady.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. It’s fine. He’s going to be fine. And Bruce and Shuri will be here in a few hours to make sure of that. Peter lets his fingers trail lightly down Mr. Stark’s neck, and startles a little when cold fingers intertwine with his and Mr. Stark pulls both their hands down so that they’re resting against his chest. That’s good too. Peter can still feel the soft beat of Mr. Stark’s heart, but now he can also scratch blunt nails through the sparse chest hair there.

“How are you feeling now?” he asks.

“Little like the filling in a road kill burrito,” Mr. Stark says, a smile playing at his still-blue lips. “A frozen road kill burrito.”

“If I may make a suggestion,” Karen intones.

“Hm?”

“Body heat may be a more effective way of raising Mr. Stark’s core temperature. I would recommend skin-to-skin contact.”

Peter stops scratching at Mr. Stark’s chest. His entire body stops, actually, like a deer frozen in headlights. If she had a face, he would have sworn that Karen was smirking at him. When he allows his gaze to move up from their entwined fingers to Mr. Stark’s face, he realizes he’s being studied intently.

“Y-you don’t have to,” he says, clearly repressing a shiver. “I’m starting to feel toastier already.”

Peter sighs, consigning himself to the inevitable. It’s not like it’s a hardship to get close to Mr. Stark It’s just a little more testing of his self-control than he’d planned on for today. He stands and in quick order retracts his suit, pulls off his t-shirt and unbuttons and steps out of his jeans. Mr. Stark makes a choked noise as he’s kicking his jeans off to the side. He leaves the boxers on. He’s not a masochist, after all.

“You ok?” Peter asks, toeing off his socks as well.

Mr. Stark coughs and splutters, but nods.

“Fine. I’m … Jesus … I’m fine.”

Trying not to think about things too hard, Peter shuffles under the blankets and scoots in so close that he can actually feel the chill hovering on Mr. Stark’s skin. Then he takes the final plunge and wraps the man up in his arms. Their chests bump, and Mr. Stark’s scarred right arm wraps loosely around Peter’s waist while he settles his head on the younger man’s bicep. He lets out a sigh as he relaxes his body into Peter’s, soft and pliant.

Peter’s imagined a scene like this a hundred, maybe a thousand times before. And he’s got an excellent imagination, but it turns out he’s missed a few vital details. He didn’t plan, for instance, on the gaping maw that opens in his heart as he feels slight brush of Mr. Stark’s stomach against his own every time he breathes in. He’d never envisioned how his mentor’s silvering hair would glow gold in the firelight, or how that light would bring out the honey tones in his brown eyes. He looks burnished by the fire, and Peter thinks that maybe his skin is losing a little bit of that sickly pallor already.

“This alright?” he asks, quiet so as not to break the hush that seems to have fallen over both of them. “Comfortable?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark says, voice a breath across Peter’s skin. “This is nice. You’re warm.”

He nestles in a little closer, turning his head into Peter’s neck so that his lips almost touch the juncture of his jaw.

“Super metabolism,” Peter confirms, his fingers from carding carelessly through the tangles at the back of Mr. Stark’s hair. He desperately hopes that he’s too out of it to remember anything happening now after he’s recovered. Peter knows he’s revealing far too much of himself with every move he makes, but it feels impossible to stop.

“Why don’t you try to sleep,” he suggests when Mr. Stark doesn’t object to being petted. “Our lift should be here in a few hours.”

“Hmm,” Mr. Stark hums his approval. His eyes are already slipping closed, body exhausted from trying to fight against his injuries.

Peter watches his face contentedly while he surrenders to sleep, muscles going slack in a much less alarming way than before. He can feel when Tony falls asleep, breaths shifting to something deeper and steadier. It’s only then that Peter allows his own eyes to close.

He lets out a relieved sigh, feeling his muscles slowly relax. Peter’s entire body has been clenched tight in fear since the explosion. His muscles ache like he’s run a marathon or lifted a city bus.

“You can’t do this to me again, my love,” he whispers into the warm air of their blanket cocoon, safe to finally speak the truth. “I don’t think my body can take it.”

It starts as a tingle in the base of his spine. Not a sign of danger, exactly, but something not quite right …

Peter’s heartbeat ticks up, whiplashed into panic. He grimaces and blinks his eyes open. Mr. Stark’s face is inches from his, somehow awake and alert.

“You know,” he says, tone casual. “I usually like to be the one to come up with the nicknames, but I think I can live with that one.”

“I –” Peter starts, then stops, unsure. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just …”

He tries to roll away from Mr. Stark, to separate their bodies, sure he must be uncomfortable – _disgusted –_ with their closeness now. But a firm hand on his back prevents him from going too far. Slowly, Peter is reeled back in.

“Not so fast, Spiderling,” Tony says. “You’re supposed to be keeping me warm.”

“I can put another log on the fire,” Peter suggests, still trying to wriggle away.

“My lips are cold,” Tony says, softly. “Think you could help me out with that, kid?”

Peter stills, eyes zeroing in on Tony’s mouth. He’s biting his lower lip. Peter wants to do that for him. They do still have the faintest tinge of blue around the edges, after all.

Gradually, very gradually, the conversation clicks in Peter’s brain. Chest filling with hope, he looks up into Tony’s eyes. They’re filled with humor, certainly, but not in a way that suggests he’s joking. After years, Peter can tell the difference.

“I, um, I could help with that,” he says.

“Knew you wouldn’t let me down, kid,” Tony exhales against Peter’s mouth.

Their noses bump, they readjust, and then they’re kissing, Tony’s cold lips brushing softly against Peter’s once before pressing forward. He groans when Peter licks into his mouth, hungry for more now that he knows he’s allowed. _He’s allowed._

“That was a terrible line,” he mutters against the hinge of Tony’s jaw when they have to break apart for breath.

“Kid, I’ve been throwing terrible lines at you for years,” Tony replies, his voice a rumble against Peter’s chest. “I’m just relieved one of them finally worked.”

Peter tugs him in for another kiss, and they laugh into each other’s mouths even as they embrace.

Holding Tony close, lips brushing, tongues tangling, Peter’s nerve endings settle. His sixth sense curls up, catlike, to sleep. It’s safe now. Tony’s safe and whole, and Peter can be sure because he’s right there, under his hands, skin still cool but growing warmer with each touch. He’s sure that the guilt and recriminations he’s been expecting will come later, but for now they’re happy and wrapped together in a nest of blankets.

They kiss until Tony’s lips turn dusky pink, and his breaths come slower and deeper. Maybe Peter should be offended that he falls asleep like that – mouth going slack between kisses – but he can’t muster the indignation. He curls himself around the older man protectively and enjoys the newfound quiet under his skin.


End file.
